Scottish designer Peter Ananin has created a way to bring a little more of the outside world into our everyday lives by creating personal miniature rural worlds dubbed MyBioPod. MyBioPod provides people with green fingers, a scientific streak or city dwellers with an innovative way to feel a little more connected to the natural world, as nature and technology are combined into a single device to study small ecosystems.

The stylish pods are designed to house a range of natural habitats such as a lake or a forest environment and are also embedded with technology that allow people to monitor changes in their ‘world’ and share their observations online through the MyBioPod network. Ananin aims for his pods to create a way for people to re-connect with nature and learn about the impact that various factors can have on our natural habitats. Peter Ananin said:

“My aim was to get people to look at their miniature worlds, MyBioPods, and relate them to the outer world, as they are small scale models of Earth’s ecosystems. The pods allow them to see the impact of managing oxygen levels, acidity, population and biodiversity, then they have the choice to let their worlds manage themselves or to intervene.”

Peter’s inspiration for MyBioPod came from studying Patrick Geddes original Outlook Tower, which was used to help people discover new insights through relating the micro and macro views of the earth. We think the MyBioPods have equally great potential as a tool for learning and would be ideal for students and teachers, as well as individuals, to learn more about nature in a new digital way. There are senors that capture data such as temperature and light that can be viewed as digital graphs, and a camera records images every hour which can later be viewed as a time lapse.